Moderator emeritus

I assume you mean refurbished ones or ones off non-Apple sites, since the new ones all come with 4GB minumum.

2GB of RAM is barely enough now. I assume you expect the computer to last a while, and 2GB of RAM will be woefully too little very soon.

That said, it'll work fine today for her needs and uses today... but no guarantees about next summer, for example.

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On a related note:

If those are truly her only uses, I strongly recommend considering one of the new Chromebooks (the $199 one is cheap, has lots of storage and outputs, but is a bit noisy with the fan, and the $249 one is really quite nice but very limited on storage... but it uses an SSD instead of a spinning hard disk, and that's a big plus).

They only really work when on WiFi (unless you're looking at stored media files... there aren't really any true apps on them), but... hey, $199 or $249 is a very good price, and even though they only come with 2GB, they're cheap enough that you could buy 4-5 of them over a few years for the price of the lowest-end MBA.

I have the $249 one, and it really is a very MacBook Air-like experience - 80% or more of the MBA for much less money. I also have the real MBA, which I prefer overall because I develop and use apps, but the Chromebook is a very nice option for those who mainly surf/play Flash games (yes, it plays Flash).

macrumors Westmere

Really??! i'd say given what the OP reckons it will be used for that 2GB is plenty...

Some people need to get off their RAM trip.

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There is no "RAM trip". As I said, 2GB may be enough, but it depends on the user's browsing and other computing habits. It certainly isn't enough for me, as I frequently have 30+ tabs open simultaneously on sites with multimedia content. While 2GB may work fine for you, it may or may not be enough for the OP.

macrumors 6502a

There is no "RAM trip". As I said, 2GB may be enough, but it depends on the user's browsing and other computing habits. It certainly isn't enough for me, as I frequently have 30+ tabs open simultaneously on sites with multimedia content. While 2GB may work fine for you, it may or may not be enough for the OP.

macrumors 604

i remember when i was playing farmville back in the day, my ram almost filled up the 4GB and things started to get really sluggish (got 8 GB now) and all mba come with 4GB now anyway unless u want to buy a refurbished one

macrumors 6502a

i remember when i was playing farmville back in the day, my ram almost filled up the 4GB and things started to get really sluggish (got 8 GB now) and all mba come with 4GB now anyway unless u want to buy a refurbished one

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Thats probably some plugin doing that that hadn't been updated or the like. A flash game on facebook on its own merit would not require 4GB of RAM, in fact nowhere even close to that.

macrumors 6502

macrumors 6502a

Really??! i'd say given what the OP reckons it will be used for that 2GB is plenty...

Some people need to get off their RAM trip.

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Good mercy. Needs change. A computer that is fixed at 2gb, with no ability to upgrade, is marginal at best for running 10.8 and if, heaven forbid, it needs an upgrade in (dare I say it...) RAM, he is SOL.

Some people need to get off their Judgemental trip. Maybe he likes slow and early obsolete. Maybe he likes spinning wheels. Maybe he hates his wife and wants her to have a stinking Mac experience. In that case, 2gb will be sufficient and he can rest assured he didn't succumb to the pressure of those on a "RAM trip".

macrumors 6502a

I'm assuming you want to get the one from the refurbished store for $749

Personally I think spending that much money on such lousy specs just to have something that looks nice and will be used to browse the web is a bit ridiculous, but you might as well just spend the extra $80 and get the model with a 128 GB SSD and 4 GB RAM and you won't have be restricted to using it as only a web browsing machine in the future

macrumors 6502a

I didn't think 2gb would be enough but my wife was trying to save money as she is putting the rest towards it.

I will get one with 4gb or maybe a MacBook Pro and get an SSD for it.

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My daughter has a 13in Macbook Pro. My wife has a 13in macbook air. The difference in weight is substantial. The air is very nice for moving around, casual browsing, email, etc. My wife loves hers (4gb ram, btw ). The extra weight doesn't look like much, but it matters. Good Luck!

macrumors regular

The question was "Is two gigs of RAM Enough?". My answer Is No. I would "NEVER" suggest that someone run a machine today with less than 8 gigs. Thats right 8 gigs. Why you ask? Because code will always be dependent on Hardware evolution and at the current rate a 2 gig machine will not be able to keep up. I think I'm giving "BEz 59" some pretty good advice considering it's for his Wife. Gotta keep the boss happy you know!

macrumors member

Do you worry that the next OS will require more? (I hate that Apple makes the ram a static element on these, and on the RetinaMBP, the new 21iMac, etc.)

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That would be annoying if it was a major change to the OS but if it was just SL to L or L to ML then I wouldn't worry. This Air shipped with Snow Leopard and I would be quite happy still using that. It's not like the previous OS's suddenly stop working when they introduce a new one! My girlfriends PC is still running Windows XP and she sees no reason to change. Women tend to have more important things to worry about!!

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